Our columnist Tatyana Yakimova talked about her long and difficult relationship with a healthy lifestyle and about whether you can really fall in love with greens, smoothies and cereals.
My childhood friendship with a healthy lifestyle never developed into a romance or a stable, strong relationship. Over the past 40 years, we have had partings, contradictions, short meetings, vacations together, unexpected mutual interest … Lately we have been meeting more and more often. Although he doesn't have the keys to my house yet.
In elementary school I was a real healthy woman: I observed the regime, ate cakes only on Sundays, did not drink coffee and was fond of sports: running, jumping, swimming, basketball, in winter - skating and skiing. I even did shooting! But then we moved to Moscow, where I quickly turned into a difficult teenager and gave up sports. Today I understand that there was simply no cool example nearby: in Cheboksary, where I spent my childhood, my best friend Marina Karpeeva was the sportiest girl in the school and at the same time the kindest and funniest - and the longest, which is also important.
And in the dormitory area of Novogireevo, the capital of the USSR, the coolest girls were outrageous. And I am with them. At the age of 18 I bought my first motorcycle, and my biker friends had nothing to do with healthy lifestyle either. We slept a little, ate all sorts of rubbish like overcooked pies, smoked and moved exclusively on our motorcycles.
In the late 80s - early 90s, in the era of raves, Kazantip, unrestrained travels around the home country and even more unrestrained parties, healthy lifestyle was the lot of athletes, nerds and a rare breed of people who just liked the feeling of purity and strength. I remember that on Solovki I had a boyfriend - he did not know anything about the Straigt Edge movement, but he created a sports club in order not to sleep on his own and not let his friends do it. Became the most eligible groom in the area. I admired him, but rockers and bikers remained my idols.
Then half of the country drank and smoked, but in different ways - depending on the level of intelligence and personality scale. In general, people who burn a candle from both ends, not really caring about health, often achieve incredible success, have the most romantic aura and become legends. They probably wouldn't be that way if they went to bed before midnight, drank smoothies and exercised every morning, and wine only on holidays. But maybe they would have lived longer? And surely you would look better? Although the crazy energy of such people is always much more noticeable than bags under the eyes.
I remember how the great Irina Rodnina talked about her best friend: sitting in a smoky kitchen until morning, with intimate conversations was sacred, and when you invite people to take a walk, run in the park, the answer is one: "Ir, you have a phase shift."
I loved both of them equally.
Today it seems to me that good and not so good habits are established not so much by mom and dad as by the environment. To live a healthy life, you need to have appropriate friends. Such a tempting example as Marina Karpeeva from my childhood. Influencer. Insanely attractive and real, lively, not a clever article or picture on Instagram. What does this picture give me? Nothing. And the article? I read on one site that a healthy lifestyle is "a way of life aimed at a COMPLETE change in previous habits related to food, physical activity and rest." This is horror, not a definition.
And further. A healthy lifestyle, like any other way of life, is repulsive if it is misinterpreted (although it’s easier to live with health care!) Or imposed. Everything seems to be right: people are full of good intentions, and the persistent desire to introduce you to the right life is a completely different story than “drink it if you respect”. But it still repels when too persistent. "Yes, go in for sports, finally, you will be slim and enduring!" And I am so hardy. “What is your salad with? I don't eat this dressing. And take away the bread, I eat only yeast-free and whole grain. By the way, I advise you too! " Thanks, I'll think about it. "Do you at least understand that only yoga is able to give us what is so lacking?" I don't understand, everything is enough for me.
And further. As D'Artagnan said to Cardinal Richelieu: "All my friends are musketeers, and all enemies are guards." All the people interesting to me violated the regime at every step, and all the healthy people were not very interesting, and often unpleasant.
In the early 2000s, when healthy lifestyle was born as a fashion trend, not all trendsetters were like the American romantics Straigt Edge of the 80s. Our ZOZhniki either lived in their own closed world, or taught everyone in a row. In addition, half of the country confused a healthy lifestyle with a constant desire to get rid of extra pounds. I remember interviewing a popular VJ. This thirty-year-old girl with match legs did not eat flour and fruits, proteins and fats - and she lost 20 kg, which was terribly proud of. She also walked along the Garden Ring from morning to evening with a bottle of water. During the interview, she constantly repeated like a mantra: "I lead a healthy lifestyle" - although what the hell, health - she even broke the cycle, and her figure resembled a skeleton. It was a disease - but a fashionable disease.
Another well-known person directly called "ordinary" people primitive, dirty and not self-respecting. It took a while to understand: arrogant lady-healthy lifestyle is not the personification of healthy lifestyle, they are just arrogant, that's all. And those who are obsessed with thinness are also not healthy people.
And in the last few years, somehow imperceptibly in my life, people began to appear for whom healthy lifestyle meant what it means - health care. Unobtrusive, undeclared, non-pathetic.
The main and undisputed healthy lifestyle influencer is one who is happy and beautiful and at the same time easy to communicate. There is a girl named Ira Shkonda, she runs, but does not call anyone to run. And I can see, albeit from a photo, how prettier she has been since she started running. There is a guy in his forties, Denis Sokolov, who goes to the gym every day (and sometimes twice a day), quit smoking a couple of years ago, eats everything tasty, but reasonable portions, and his body is such that a twenty-year-old would envy. And the wonderful beauty Katya Karpova, who once had problems with her skin, began to monitor her nutrition, and then created the freaky Pure Love cosmetics. And these are not all supporters of healthy lifestyle, but the brightest and most beloved for me.
So I began to undersalt food and shove greens everywhere. I do everything with fresh herbs: pies, sauces, smoothies, soups, sandwiches.
Aside from ciabatta, I really love yeast-free and whole grain breads. I fry something every six months - I just bake it. I constantly eat vegetables and fruits. I love porridge just like that, and not because it is necessary.
But the most important thing for me is psychological and mental health. Live wherever you want. Communicate only with those you like (if possible, of course, but I like a lot of people, so it's not difficult). Do not freak out over trifles - all diseases are from nerves.
I am one of those people for whom health is more important than beauty. In other words: if I look bad because I slept for 4 hours all week, just think. Yes, pale, and wrinkles have increased, so what? There is always blush, concealer, dark glasses. The main thing is that the mood is great and the state of health matches him.
But if I suddenly feel lethargic and back pain - hey, urgently go to bed! Siesta! Plus in the evening all the news of the world will wait. And dinner is light and not at 10pm. A glass of wine will wait until the weekend.
I do not want and will not completely change my old habits. But I'm still changing. Gradually, consciously, and sometimes unconsciously, with comfort. I am no longer alarmed when friends in a restaurant ask for a Caesar salad, but with a different sauce and without croutons, and ask - what, by the way, can you replace the sauce with? I'm even wondering what to replace the sauce with? I want to make a caesar for my parents, they are better off without mayonnaise.
In general, right on Somerset Maugham: the wall separating me from a healthy lifestyle is no thicker than a sheet of paper.
But I'm still a bit of a rocker and a biker.
